A Depth Course in Embodied Psychoanalysis
The Theory and Practice of Bodily-Informed Psychoanalytical Psychotherapy
NOW CLOSED
Saturday 17 September 2022 – Wednesday 26 April 2023
A series of live webinars with Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold
CPD Credits: 32 hours
- Maximum Participants: 40
- A depth course for psychotherapists of all modalities
- Bookings close at 9:00am BST Wednesday 14 September
What changes when we view psychoanalytic theory from the lens of embodiment? Nothing—and everything! While there is no disputing the enduring relevance of the psychoanalytic concepts that have become known as repression/dissociation, transference, resistance, and interpretation, Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold believe that these are radically transformed when a body-based approach replaces traditional concept-based theorising.
READ MORE...This transformation involves shifts in language, conceptualisation and practice and offers a model for contemporary, bodily-informed psychoanalytical psychotherapy that is highly effective.
In this series of seminars and live supervisions, we will be viewing the body as the indispensable foundation of the mind, elaborating new concepts and vocabularies for psychoanalysis. They will be sharing specific, often transformational moments in the clinical exchange, which show what they experienced in their bodies and the thoughts and fantasies that attended these bodily feelings. They will be offering a fresh understanding of the widely accepted “dissociation-enactment” model and a view of analytic therapy as meetings between “foreign bodies.”
Firmly ground in both theory and practice, each session will include a theoretical presentation, dialogue with participants, a one-one live supervision applying the practice, and a whole group exercise using Jon and Doris’s model of embodied supervision. There will also be mid-monthly meetings in which participants can share experiences of how this embodied understanding is impacting their work.
FULL PROGRAMME
Recording of teachings will be available after Saturday sessions but not experiential or supervision aspects of the training
Saturday 17 September 2022 – 14:00-16:30 BST
A New Language for an embodied psychoanalysis
The language that we used in the book differs somewhat from that of most psychoanalytic writing. In the belief that concept-based words such as “object,” and “mentalisation” obscure the embodied humanness of patients and therapists, we have tried to find words that we believe are more body-based, that is, they allow us to feel their meaning in our bodies. So, for example, instead of ego or the self we use the word I. Instead of object(s) we will use the word you Instead of object relations, or the third, we use the word we. And we use the word world as a kind of shorthand to describe aspects of life that do not directly involve human relating such as nature, science, the arts, religion, spirituality, politics, etc. In this session we discuss the rationale for using this language and provide a demonstration of this through a live individual supervision followed by group work.
Wednesday 28 September 2022 – 14:00-15:30 BST
A New Language for an Embodied Psychoanalysis
Discussion and Live Supervision
Saturday 15 October 2022 – 14:00-16:30 BST
I-you-we-world in embodied clinical practice
One of the most important discoveries of the 20th century involves the idea that one’s sense of self (I) cannot exist independent of a sense of one’s connectedness with others (you and we). As far as Doris and Jon can tell, a sense of we emerges from the sensing of I and you. I, you and we are steeped in and shaped by the world in which we live. People who are relatively well-functioning and free from ongoing trauma tend to experience a rhythmic flow in their sensing of I, you and we and world. However, as they will explain, traumatic experiences disrupt this flow in important ways. They will then introduce a new way of presenting clinical material that is based on the I experience of the therapist, the therapist’s you experience of the patient which is gained through imitation and the we experience of the interaction between therapist and patient.
Wednesday 2 November 2022 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
I-you-we-world in embodied clinical practice
Discussion and Live Supervision
Saturday 19 November 2022 – 14:00-16:30 GMT
Traumatised Bodies and a Change from Dissociation-Enactment to the Fracturing of Embodied Wholeness
Doris and Jon will first explain what we mean by traumatic experiences and then describe how the bodies of therapists and patients talk about them. They see differences between traumatic experiences in very early life – those that interfere with the development of a sense of embodied wholeness – and those that occur in adulthood. Experiences that we believe warrant the term “traumatic” are those that confront us with a terrifying threat of annihilation, usually because our connectedness to needed others has been disrupted or lost. These efforts are followed by strenuous efforts, often unconscious, to restore a sense of certainty that these needed connections are available. Their understanding, which involves disturbances of the I-you-we-world flow, provides an alternative to the dissociation-enactment model that is currently popular among relational analysts.
Wednesday 7 December 2022 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
Traumatised Bodies and a Change from Dissociation-Enactment to the Fracturing of Embodied Wholeness
Discussion and live supervision
Saturday 10 December 2022 – 14:00-16:30 GMT
Memory, Narrative, and the Embodiment of Transference
Doris and Jon will examine memory as it relates to narrative and transference through the lens of embodiment. They will show that the memories that arise within the analytic encounter are both verbal/declarative and nonverbal/procedural in nature. The form that both types of memories take is that of narratives. Their present understanding of what has been regarded as transference involves the ways in which the therapeutic relationship depends on memory-laden narratives. They suggest that specific, identifiable transferences occur when memories of trauma result in the slowing – at times even freezing – of I-you-we-world experiencing. They will present illustrative clinical examples.
Wednesday 11 January 2023 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
Memory, Narrative, and the Embodiment of Transference
Discussion and live supervision
Saturday 28 January 2023 – 14:00-16:30 GMT
From Defence-Resistance to Agency and Change
Doris and Jon will examine one possible reason for the wrenching difficulty so often encountered in attaining therapeutic change: desirable as it might seem to be, the sense of being free to change is often experienced as terrifyingly fraught with danger. They believe that such terror may be alleviated or even eliminated through embodied connectedness or what they call the development of a sense of “we.” They suggest that understanding the fear that so often attends freedom to change may point the way toward a further reconceptualisation of resistance and defence. They see that the development of a greater sense of certainty about one’s going-on-being as well as a greater toleration of life’s irreducible uncertainty is a necessary accompaniment to feeling free to change. Neither, they believe, is possible outside of embodied connectedness.
Wednesday 8 February 2023 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
From Defence-Resistance to Agency and Change
Discussion and live supervision
Saturday 25 February 2023 – 14:00-16:30 GMT
Fascist Experience: The Embodiment of Us and Them
In this session Doris and Jon hope to demonstrate that us versus them, the binary that lies at the heart of fascist experience, is profoundly embodied. They suggest that fascist experience is not merely political but that it infiltrates many aspects of our personal and professional lives and that it may even affect our therapeutic relationships. They offer two clinical vignettes illustrating the challenges they faced in working with patients who supported a fascist-leaning leader. They conclude by suggesting that the emphasis on argument and dialogue in relational psychoanalysis counters the seductions of fascist experience.
Wednesday 8 March 2023 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
Fascist Experience: The Embodiment of Us and Them
Discussion and live supervision
Saturday 18 March 2023 – 14:00-16:30 GMT
Foreign Bodies: From Interpretation to Translation
Try as we may to bring our language as close as possible to the lived experience of the therapeutic partners, Doris and Jon believe that it is impossible to precisely capture and describe exactly what is experienced in the treatment situation. While interpretation is an established psychoanalytic concept, it is counter to our vision of the psychoanalytic process. Translation, as it has been recently developed by contemporary translation theorists, is better suited to an embodied therapeutic practice. In this session they demonstrate through clinical examples how translation, newly understood as “encounters with foreignness,” promotes an attitude of uncertainty that enhances the healing process.
Wednesday 22 March 2023 – 14:00-15:30 GMT
Foreign Bodies: From Interpretation to Translation
Discussion and live supervision
Saturday 15 April 2023 – 14:00-16:30 BST
Embodied Endings
In their concluding meeting Doris and Jon will summarise their new vision of psychoanalysis as “Talking Bodies” and describe how embodied relationships may end. They will consider the many types of endings such as planned endings, abrupt unplanned endings, avoided endings and therapeutic relationships that seem to go on indefinitely.
This will bring us to the frequently asked therapeutic question: “When should therapy end?”. They will use clinical illustrations to try to show that the answer does not reside either in the mind of the therapist or in the mind of the patient. As they see it, the timing of the ending of a therapeutic relationship should only be determined through the body-to-body communication of both partners. As the course comes to an end, they will consider how participants may creatively use this embodied approach in their consulting rooms.
Wednesday 26 April 2023 – 14:00-15:30 BST
Embodied Endings
Discussion and live supervision